(II) Disciples

31 (II)Disciples

Valor said, descending from some place above.

“Ah, there you are,” Adam said, scowling at the floating skull. “You have us trek through the wilderness for days, do nothing to train us, and just watch us. And then when I ask if we’re any closer to the gate? What do we get? Not a clear reply from you. How are you going to teach us? No answer.” The Young Lord huffed as the skull just stared at him. Adam’s scowl collapsed as he bit his lip. “I… I apologize. I am just… my blood is high. I need a moment to… to reorient myself.”

Valor continued to say nothing. The silence dragged long enough for Shiv to be uncomfortable. Only then, did Valor speak again.

Valor asked.

Adam looked to Shiv, but the Deathless didn’t have an answer either. “I… being silent? Judging me?”

“His tactics?” Adam sighed.

“So… I could have just left?” Adam said.

Adam scoffed. “Oh, yes. Please, tell me more things I know.”

The Young Lord stared at Valor and grimaced. “And… you can tell all this just by watching me?”

“What?” Adam said, blinking. He looked at Shiv? “Are you—are you serious? My training is to train ?”

“And why must do this?” Adam asked.

Adam just looked at Valor, his eyes only managing a weak glare.

Valor continued.

The Young Lord took on a contemplative and absent look, but ultimately said nothing in response.

“You fear?” Shiv said, unsure what Valor meant.

Shiv shrugged. “I just deal with things, Valor. I don’t let them linger or dwell on them.”

The Deathless thought about that and nodded. “Yeah. I’d say so.”

Valor hummed a laugh.

“What part is that?”

Shiv didn’t think that was exactly fair. “My Path lets me do that. It’s good for me. I don’t think it’s the same for those who have to do a ritual.”

Valor said, his tone hushed.

“I mean, I got a lot of skill levels.”

Valor laughed.

Adam didn’t respond to this, so deep was he in his own thoughts. Shiv was getting a grasp on how Valor intended to shape them. The ancient Pathbearer was going to build them both from different foundations. Spiritually for Adam, technically for Shiv. It made sense to some extent, but Shiv still wasn’t sure about being trained by Adam. There was still a lot of that rested between them, but maybe that was the point.

Valor paused.

“What? What did I do?”

Valor sounded practically miserable.

“Well, then I guess we should endeavor to find the fragment of you that has the fleshy bits next.”

The skull went still in the air. Then turned to Adam.

Adam finally emerged from his thoughts to narrow his eyes at the hovering skull. “Fine. Just so that you remember that I’m the one that gets to taste his cooking right now.”

Somehow, Valor managed an expression of abject misery with a flicker in his sockets and a twisting of his jaw.

Might of Mass > 71

Diamond Shell > 80

Momentum Core > 64

Parry > 31

Biomancy > 45

Pyromancy > 6

Psychomancy > 6

Awareness > 10

Intimidation > 10

Disease Resistance > 8

Practical Metabiology > 11

Vitality Drain > 9

Revenant > 5

“I really need to find something capable of killing me brutally,” Shiv muttered. Uva lightly elbowed him in the side before chiding him with her eyes. “What? My leveling’s slowed. I’ve only gained one or two levels for my skills over the past few days and deaths.” He frowned into the fish head soup he made. It was still piping hot—a benefit that even minor Pyromancy allowed—but looking at himself reminded him how slow his Cooking Skill was progressing as well. “Now I feel even worse. If only there was a way I could get killed because my cooking wasn’t good enough somehow…”

A silence dragged on for a while..Shiv continued staring at his own reflection in the soup. He scratched at his stubble. “I need a shave too…” It was then that the silence became unnatural. As he looked up, he realized that the entire camp was glaring at him. Including Uva.

“His leveling has slowed over the past few days, he says,” Adam grumbled, taking another bite out of his fish head. “You disgust me, Shiv. You disgust us all.”

Shiv coughed. “I’m just… I’m just used to dying and making things quicker. Running into that patch of diseased bushes did wonders for my Disease Resistance.”

“Yes,” Uva said, her voice thin with annoyance. “And then you kept running back into the same patch until it stopped killing you.”

“I managed to isolate it with my Biomancy by the end,” Shiv said. “Of course I might have… caused some kind of cell deficiency too. I think it’s because I pulled all my infected cells together or something. I’ll check the chapter again. I think Dven will like to examine my corpses too. Maybe it'll find something interesting there.”

“And that’s a sentence I never thought I'd hear in my life,” Ikki said, swallowing a piece of lettuce. “You’re really not bothered by dying at all, huh?”

“It’s just efficient,” Shiv said, shifting on his seat. Adam and Uva made eye contact then, and both of them shook their heads. “What?”

“Shiv. You can be very dear and very sweet. And considerate. But also sometimes casually disturbing. Sometimes all at the same time.”

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“I’m just being efficient,” Shiv repeated, feeling a little attacked. He felt like he'd been over this topic many times the last few days. “I think how fast I progress is based on how severe my deficiencies are when I die. But dying the same way to the same threat eventually erodes the effectiveness of my Feat. I need to… seek out new deaths too. Broaden my experiences.”

“You’re doing it again,” Uva said, her tone flat. “You’re doing it right now.”

“Ah. Sorry.”

Ikki drained her soup with a loud slurp, staring at Shiv over the edge of the bowl. “I think it’s pretty weird but also kind of cool. Did Adam manage to kill you at all?”

“No,” the Young Lord groaned loudly. “He’s practically a giant cockroach by this point. A giant cockroach that can get very fast and who uses his dimensional cloak as a morgue for all his corpses so he can keep rebuilding his armor.”

“Oh! So that’s why you’re harvesting your old bodies,” Ikki said. “Wow. That’s a lot better of a reason than I thought.”

“What did you think I was doing?” Shiv asked.

“I donno. Mad Biomancy stuff. Like trying to keep a heart beating in a dead body or fusing flesh together to create a monster.”

Shiv started at her. “I might have done a bit of the former…”

“Eww.” Ikki grimaced. “Did it work?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said. “I even got the body to breathe again, but the mind wasn’t working anymore. I think it has something to do with being without oxygen for too long. Or my soul not being inside it.”

“Creepy. But cool.”

Uva rubbed at her temple. “Mostly creepy for me. Sorry, Shiv.”

Shiv shrugged. “Biomancy isn’t everyone’s thing.”

“Neither is dying,” Adam muttered off by the side. Shiv caught the other Umbrals nodding in agreement.

Shiv eyed Uva’s nightglass field armor and considered something. “Actually… Do you guys want some armor?”

“Your skeleton?” Uva said, raising an eyebrow. She looked at the thick plates of Diamond Shelled bones presently fused around Shiv. She opened her mouth to say something in the negative, then paused. “It does seem rather durable, actually.”

“It’s also bloody dense and heavy. Like him sometimes.” Adam breathed. “I would know because he hit me with some of his bones. And there’s also another problem: Biomancy. Shiv, do you have an easy way for a Non-Biomancer to get in and out of your bone armor?”

Shiv paused. “Not yet?”

Adam put down his bowl and twirled his fingers as if to say,

Uva, however, thought a bit further. “I think there might be potential here. Maybe not as a full ensemble but as additional layering for the chest and legs. Heavy armor for heavy combat.”

Shiv looked at her nightglass armor again. “Yeah. The nightglass weapons are pretty sharp, but I found them to be pretty brittle, too.”

“The armor is treated,” Uva said. “And I wear my enchanted leathers beneath, so it’s not likely to cut me even if it does break. But if we were suffering a bombardment and my outer protection got compromised… Shrapnel can prove quite deadly.”

“And some bone plates might just patch things up.”

Uva nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“Oh, does someone want to wear their dead boyfriend?” Ikki teased.

“Ikki,” Uva said, a hint of warning in her voice. This was not the “big sister mode, I’m going to pull your ear Uva,” this was “recently promoted Cherished Sister operating in the field Uva.” The young Umbral coughed, offered a formal apology, and then started maintaining her equipment.

“So,” Adam said, staring at Valor. “We missed a few topics out there earlier. You made things clear about our training, but what about the gate?” The Young Lord looked to Uva. “Are we close? Far? Where are we? Can I ask for some details and get something more than just a non-reaction.”

Shiv noticed Uva looking to Valor for permission, and the skull nodded. “We are a day’s walk from reaching the Compact gate.”

“A day’s walk?” Adam said, blinking in surprise. Then, his expression hardened. “We can get there faster if we just teleported. Do we have a route scouted? Wards? I can fly there and back within a few hours. Chart a route. Secure a space for us to jump across.”

“It must be traveled on foot,” Uva said. “Heavy warding. More importantly, Compact has Rift Demons contracted to serve as their scouts. Thus far, we have not been able to get past them. Attempting to teleport in the vicinity of a Rift Demon is… a dangerous proposition.”

“So, me and Shiv will eliminate the Rift Demons, then,” Adam said. “He’ll charge them from the front and smash them, while I strike with precision from afar. And then—”

“No,” Uva said, her voice firm. “We are not risking combat. Come.” She rose from where she sat. “Ikki. Legend Valor. Shall we show them?”

“Show us what?” Adam asked.

Valor said, his voice ending with a low growl of foreboding.

The Young Lord sneered as he gazed into the campfire. “I get back home. No matter what it takes. No matter the struggle. The entire world can be against me, and it will make no difference.”

A few meters away, Ikki snorted a laugh loud enough for everyone to hear.

“You doubt me, Sister Ikki?” Adam asked.

Ikki paused, looked over her shoulder, and nodded without hesitation. “Yeah. I do.”

“This is… bullshit,” Adam breathed.

“That… is not quite the entire world, but it is a sizable of people,” Shiv took in the horizon and found himself startled and impressed.

“Dimensionals, mostly,” Uva said, her expression focused and intense. There was a quiet anger in her mind as well. And soon, Shiv understood why.

The scene before them was one of fire and industry. The group peered down at the distant horizon from a mountainous high point. Below, dense forests of mega-fungi and arching trees ran—until they suddenly ceased. Severed at the base by cave biters with blades attached to their sides. True to Valor’s words, the angler fish-looking creature that killed Shiv so many times when he first fell into the Abyss could get much, bigger. Most of them were the size of small hills, and on their backs seemed to be entire lumberyards run by shrouded figures and metallic dimensionals.

Then, the cave biters broke into song, their voices slow and deep, but definitely intelligible.

And aside from the logger cave biters, there were also others carrying what seemed like golden cathedrals on their backs. Cathedrals stuffed full of treasure. They stomped forward on a vast, black-paved path, and chained to the cave biters were lines and lines of slaves. Shiv could see that a great many of them were Umbrals, but the bulk seemed to be And poorly treated ones too. Many were in disrepair, leaking, their electronic voices moaning and crying out in despair.

The caravan of slave-driving, treasure-dealing cave biters passed numerous guard towers infused with glowing fire elementals—Shiv noted the burning orbs at their peak were of the same brightness and design as the skull of the elemental golem he faced back in Passage. “Those towers will fry us if we try a direct approach.”

“They aren’t the main threat,” Uva said, pointing up above. Thanks to his cloak, Shiv had a bit of Shadowsense, and he what lurked in the darkness much better than he did before. What he saw were fast, moving shapes. They were like smaller dragons, but their bodies were sharp and jagged. Atop their backs were riders clad in ebony armor. And then there was an even larger shape looming in the back. Its form was colossal—even larger than the adult cave biters, and its outline reminded Shiv of an octopus. There was something about its single glowing eye, though…

“Don’t look at the eye too long,” Uva said. Shiv turned his gaze away. “It will sense you. It’s called a Jealousy, and it’s a Greater Demon—one contracted to guard the gate.”

“But where’s the gate?” Adam said. “I only see watchtowers, dimensionals, slaves, and people surrounding that large stone archway. Hmm. Maybe that’s a small fort off by the side, but still…”

At the end of the ebony road, the merchant cave biters walked toward a colossal, looming archway framing a set of old world ruins. The glowing eye stalks of the cave biters swayed—and fired every now and again, disintegrating slaves clever enough to slip their chains, but foolish enough to flee.

“Godsdamned monsters,” Adam spat.

Shiv agreed, but he was distracted by something else. He wondering how pieces of the old world could scatter so far, but then the archway activated, and a light splashed over all of them. A fiery, disturbing light. That’s when Shiv realized what he was truly looking at: the . The gate leading back to the surface, supposedly. But through the gate he glimpesed at the visage of another world. Another dimension.

This one looked like a vision from a nightmare, abstract but industrious, a world of metal and smoke. He heard the slaves wail as they were marched into the gate, their shrieks echoing across the lands. Soon, the shrieks became a constant, Umbral and automata voices becoming the bulk. Ikki’s expression hardened. Uva’s eyes went flat as she deadened her heart.

Beyond the gateway were other structures. Massive brass structures with magical sigils seared onto their surfaces. Off by the side, Shiv thought he glimpsed something that almost looked like a star, but it was black as ink and seemed to have chains latched into it. Massive chains connecting it to other edifices in the distance.

As the merchant cave biters passed through one after another, Shiv clenched his jaw in disgust. “Those cave biters. They’re running slaves?”

“Most of them are slaves too,” Ikki said. “They’re contracted to a master. The Compact of Babel is a people of laws and agreements. But not justice or ethics. They will deal in anything, and they seek to spread as far and take as much as they can. Including people.”

“Yeah, well, they’re going to need to change their habits real soon,” Shiv said, glaring at the scene before him. There must’ve been tens of thousands of slaves going in there… Just how many people were being transported? A slow, boiling hate churned inside Shiv. He hated slavers on principle. He hated slavers because they offended his every desire. He hated slavers because they existed.

And soon, he would show these slavers just how much he hated them, in every way he could.

“Is this… the only way back to the surface?” Adam whispered.

“Sure, you c also try navigating your way back up the Abyss,” Ikki said. “But good luck with that. You’ll be wandering for months if the Court doesn’t catch you, or Descenders don’t recruit you, or the Necrotechs don’t execute you for being a surfacer.”

“We’re not just going through that gate,” Shiv declared. “We’re it from Compact.”

Uva stared at him and bit her lip. “That will be tantamount to war, Shiv. War between Weave and Compact. We have… in place. That we won’t trespass on each other’s territory or take action against each other. At least not openly.”

“That’s fine. I don’t want to implicate you. Not the Composer. Not Weave. Not the Arachnae Order. You aren’t the ones that will be doing the taking. This is gonna be gate.”

The Psychomancer’s mouth opened slightly. “That’s…”

“Suicide?” Shiv asked, grinning. “Madness? Maybe. But it just sounds like a good time to me. Guess the System heard my prayers earlier.”

“They’ll have mind mages. Powerful ones.”

“Then, I better get to practicing more.”

Uva eyed him, and nodded. “I suppose should.”

Valor said. The fire in his eyes burned dim as he watched the trail of atrocity.

The skull turned, regarding Shiv and Adam.

“Yeah. I look forward to killing every last one of the slavers. Even if it kills me. Broken Moon, I hope they can kill me.”

The Young Lord’s stare hardened. “Never doubt me. If he can do it, I can.”

Uva looked at Adam and then Shiv.

“Just the ones that love the climb,” Shiv said, earning a slight smile from her.

“Still…” Adam sighed. “How the bloody hells are we going to get in? Even if we could by some miracle—”

“Hello,” Shiv said. “Did you just say my name?”

“— By some miracle… defeat that small army of… giant monsters guarding the gate, how are we going to get in without them just shutting it off?”

Everyone pondered that question for a moment. Except for Valor. He just observed. Not the gate, but Shiv and Adam.

“I might have a few angles of approach,” Uva said. “Some Shadow Cells have conducted raids on the flesh caravans to liberate their victims. Furthermore, we have contacts in the Compact garrison. Defectors and spies of our own…”

“I might have an idea,” Shiv said. And from within his cloak, he pulled out his other recent Quest reward. The fused bronze face born of countless aviary helmets melting together during the mana bomb felt almost like a feather in Shiv’s hands, but he regarded its Enchantments once more.

Equipment:

Tier: Heroic

Condition: Damaged

Composition: Bronze

Enchantments > Perfect Semblance; Adept-Skill Thief (0/1); Initiate-Skill Thief (0/2); Heroic Mind-Shield

“Is that the mask you got from the Quest?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” Shiv said, eyeing the rest of the group. “We said we wanted a field test. Well. Let’s find out what lets me do.”

And thus, he placed the mask on his face, and felt a dense barrier immediately sever his Psychomancy from the outside world.